The Everest Base Camp luxury trek, and what luxury cannot buy

Here is the honest map of it, village by village, going up. Read the right hand column rather than the left. The heights climb steadily and the comfort falls off a cliff somewhere around two thirds of the way up, and that is not a failure of our buying. It is the trail.

What you are buying at the bottom of that table is genuinely worth having. A private bathroom at Phakding and Namche Bazaar means you are not crossing a cold yard at two in the morning. A heated dining room means an evening you can actually enjoy instead of one you sit through in a down jacket. Better food low down matters more than it sounds, because appetite is the first thing altitude takes and eating well for the first four days leaves you with something in reserve.

The acclimatization day at Namche Bazaar is where the comfortable version is at its best. The walk goes up to the Everest View Hotel, which is a terrace on a ridge with Everest and Ama Dablam in front of it, and the right thing to do there is sit down and order a pot of tea. We do not state that hotel’s elevation because our own sources give three, and what matters about it is the view rather than the altimeter.

What the lodges are like all the way up, including the ones money cannot improve, is on the page about tea houses on the Everest Base Camp trek.

Air. That is the short version and it is the one that matters. The proportion of oxygen in the air up there is the same as at home. There is simply less air, and no room, no meal and no upgrade changes what that does to you.

Three things get sold on luxury pages that are not true on this route, so we will name them.

A hot shower every night. No. Hot water is a paid extra in most lodges and it gets scarcer, colder and more expensive with every hundred meters of height. Our own published list for this trip puts showers and hot water in the excluded column, and that is an honest reflection of what is actually available rather than an oversight in the pricing.

An easier climb. No. The walking days are the same walking days. The climb to Namche Bazaar is the same long uphill afternoon, the base camp day is the same longest day of the trip, and the pre dawn hill to Kala Patthar, 5,545 m (18,192 ft), is the same freezing two hours. What the trek asks of your body is on the page about what makes this trek hard, and it does not have a comfortable column.

Protection from altitude. No, and this is the one that gets people hurt. Altitude illness does not care what your room cost. It is answered by climbing slowly, sleeping low, drinking, eating and turning around when you have to, all of which are free and none of which is optional. Every route we run that reaches the camp keeps both acclimatization days for exactly that reason. The subject itself belongs to the page on altitude sickness on this trek, which is written to a stricter standard because it is medical.

A flight that goes when you want it to. No, and this one catches people who have paid the most. The airstrip at Lukla closes for weather in both directions, and a comfortable ticket does not open it. Every version of this trek sits on the same sky, which is why a serious itinerary carries spare time and why we put ours at the Kathmandu end. The whole problem is on the page about the flight to Lukla, and the version of this walk that removes the flight altogether is the trek by road.

If what you actually want is to shorten the hard part rather than soften it, the honest product is different. The trek with a helicopter return at 12 days keeps the whole climb and takes the walk out away. That takes days off the safe end of the trip instead of the dangerous end.

The trip facts for this product publish a maximum altitude of 5,364 m (17,598 ft), which is the height of Everest Base Camp itself. The same product’s own day list names Kala Patthar, 5,545 m (18,192 ft), on the second to last walking morning. Those two statements cannot both be the whole truth, and we have not settled which is right.

It matters, because Kala Patthar is where you actually see Everest. The mountain is hidden from the ground at base camp. The photograph in your head was taken from the hill above the last lodges, before dawn, in the cold. A trip that stands in the camp and does not go up that hill the next morning is a different trip from the one most people think they are buying. That viewpoint has its own page, what Kala Patthar is and why it works.

So here is what we do about it. Ask us, before you book, whether the departure you are looking at goes up Kala Patthar, and we will answer in writing for that departure rather than from a table. If that morning is the reason you are coming, say so in your first message and we will build the trip around it.

We could have quietly published the higher of our own two figures and nobody would have noticed. Accuracy is the only thing this site is actually selling, so we publish the disagreement instead and we are fixing the record behind it.

Everything the classic trek includes is in this one too: a licensed guide, a porter, both permits, every bed and every meal on the trail, and full cover for the crew. The lines below are what our own published inclusion list for this trip adds on top of that1, and the exclusions that still apply.

What it adds. A five star hotel category in Kathmandu at each end. The best rooms available in each village rather than the standard twin. An assistant guide once the group reaches six, so nobody walks alone if the group splits by pace. An oximeter carried for daily oxygen and pulse checks. A farewell dinner with Nepali music and dance, and a certificate at the end, both of which are nice and neither of which is the reason to book this.

What it still excludes. Travel insurance with helicopter evacuation cover, which we require, do not sell and do not include. Hot showers, hot water, bottled water, battery charging, wifi, laundry, desserts and bar bills on the trail. International flights and your visa. Kathmandu sightseeing entrance fees. Tips for your guide and porters. Anything a delay, a canceled flight or a strike costs you.

Two honest notes on that list. First, the porters. A load of 25 to 30 kg is common on this route. That is what we see on the trail, not what we do. Our own cap is 20 kg for one porter, and over that we add another porter rather than put more on one back. The older weight limits in our published lists do not agree with each other, so we print none of them. Second, the same list reads as though Kathmandu accommodation were excluded, while the day list starts you in a five star hotel. That is our record contradicting itself again, and your quote will state what your nights in the city actually are.

Where money goes on this route in general, rather than on this package, is on the cost page. For treks and passes we require insurance cover to 6,000 m (19,685 ft), and what else a policy has to say is on the page about travel insurance for this trek.

Somebody who is going to do this walk anyway and would rather not spend the first week of it uncomfortable. That is the whole customer, and there is nothing soft about it.

Book it if sleep is your weak point. Plenty of fit people are undone on this trek not by the climbing but by six bad nights in a row. A private bathroom and a warm room for the first four nights is worth real money to somebody who knows that about themselves.

Book it if you are traveling as a couple or with family and the shared bathroom question is the thing standing between you and the trip. It is a common reason and it is a good one.

Book it if the trip is a one off. If you are doing this once, in a year you will not get back, the extra comfort low down buys you more of the trip in a state to enjoy it.

Do not book it expecting the mountain to be softer. If your worry is the walking or the altitude rather than the plumbing, this is the wrong purchase and we will tell you so. The right answers to those worries are training, a slower profile, or a route that stops lower, and the formats page lays all of them out.

Do not book it for a hot shower at the top. There is not one. We would rather lose the sale here than have you find that out at Lobuche.

There is no single published price for the comfortable trek yet. The price comes to you in writing, in the quote for your dates, before you pay anything. Ask us for that quote.

A comfortable trip is bought village by village, and the better rooms are not the same price in every season. Tell us your dates and how many of you there are, and we will quote the actual rooms we would book you into. We reply within 24 hours.

When you do book, the deposit is 30 percent of the price, and what happens if you cancel is set out on our booking terms page.

Three other products on this site walk this exact trail. They change one thing each, and the thing they change is the thing you should choose on.

Every other format we run, including the ones that add a pass or a lake valley and the ones that never reach the camp at all, is compared on the tours and formats page. If the real question is whether to walk or to fly, that argument is on the trek compared with the helicopter.

Every number above is listed here with the body that publishes it and the date we last read it. If a figure has changed since, write to us and we will correct the page and say that we did.